And what I'm saying is that your feelings on the matter, and it is one matter, derive from a wider cultural understanding of these things. Everyone can agree that there would be a difference in severity between these two cases, the reasons and extent for and of this difference is where our understandings come into play.
I don't think it's an accident you used happily. I think that word is the key to the problematic American understanding of justice.
Why is the death penalty better here than anything else? I can get being neutral to it, though I never could be, but better?